Resistance: Hathe Book One (16 page)

“
You’ve had an interesting reputation since your teens, and
well you know it,” she said, laughing at this display but not
fooled for a second. Still beneath the surface, she sensed the
tautly held control of her apparently volatile friend. But she was
also a skilled actor.

“
As
for me, my story is told,” she said as blithely. “Father and I
quarreled, I took myself off in a huff and missed the ships’
departure. Needless to say it wasn’t believed.”

“
I
should think not. Everyone knew how close your family was. Couldn’t
you think of anything better? Why not stolen by bandits for ransom?
Or you were knocked on the head, developed amnesia and wandered
off?”

“
They are just as unbelievable and you know it. Apart from
which, my tale is told and it’s too late to change it
now.

“
You’re right, more’s the pity. It really is the worst load of
garbage I ever heard, but it will have to do. As for me, I do think
I was cast off in disgrace, because, because...

“
Your father was trying to get you to marry Emily delns
Varst?”

“
Ugh!” His face crinkled. “Not even Father would try that
one.”

“
You
had got the President’s daughter pregnant?”

“
Who
says I hadn’t?” he grinned back.

Her
eyes opened wide. “There was a rumor going round. I remember
Jessamie saying something.

“
Rubbish she did,” he retorted, rapidly backing
down.

“
Thought that would call your bluff. But you must have told
them something, if only to put them off the track?”

“
There was no point. By the time Radcliff caught me, he was so
suspicious that anything I said would only have made matters worse.
So I played dumb: the spoiled Haut Liege in a sulk.”

“
Which you can play to perfection.”

“
Thank you.” He lifted an eyebrow in some surprise.

“
Well you can, so you needn’t look at me like that. Save it
for the Terrans.” A thought caught her. “Since we can’t avoid
imprisonment, why not use it to reinforce the set-up of a society
of Haut Liege and peasants. After what they’ve done to us, the
least the Terrans deserve is to have a pair of insufferably
arrogant Haut Liege thrust upon them. We won’t be able to fool
Major Radcliff—the man knows too much about what Hathe was like
before they came—but possibly we can minimize his credibility with
the other Terrans.”

“
By
exposing them to a full blast of those exalted personages, the Lady
Marthe asn Castre and the Master Jacquel des Trurain?” For an
instant the old, wicked delight lit his eyes.

“
Exactly!”

“
And
Radcliff? How are you going to manage him?”

She
looked away at that, out the window to the rocky shadows of the
valley below. Then she retreated to the sanctuary of a chair and
sat tensely poised on the front edge. The air strained heavily
around them again. “That will be a more personal battle,” was all
she could say. Who she must battle wasn’t clear, even to her. Too
many conflicted feelings invaded her whenever she thought of the
Terran. Hamon Radcliff was her enemy. So why couldn’t she think of
him as one?

Jaca
went to stand by the window, looking out it as he asked the
question she knew he couldn’t avoid. “He’ll want to make you his
mistress?”

“
If
I can get him to trust me? Yes, probably. ”

He
turned half back. “Will you agree?” All the light was stripped from
him as he waited, and she saw the effect of her slow nod in
reply.

“
If
necessary to keep my cover. Yes.”

“
Can
you bear it?”

A
jagged gasp of laughter escaped her. “After what we’ve have endured
these last four and a half years? This is nothing.”

“
Maybe.”

He
lied, and they both knew it. More than anyone else alive, he knew
the cost of those strife-torn years, years which should have seen
her youth and young loves. Emotionally, she was a novice. Did she
really understand what she proposed?

“
He
won’t tolerate our charade otherwise,” she added then.

“
You
seem sure he’ll know it to be a charade.”

“
Oh,
yes. Sometimes, it’s as if he can see right into my—” and she broke
off in confusion. She shook her head and continued in a voice
devoid of emotion. “But without proof, he can do nothing. Who’s
going to believe him if he claims I’m a spy, when he’s the one
keeping me safe, and you can be sure he will be fully aware of that
too.” Bitter anguish feathered her whispered words.

Jacquel watched the emotions chase across her face.
Damn
the Terran and his charm
. And he was going to have to watch her
do this, watch the two of them together, watch his worst enemy with
his best friend.

Marthe
shook herself mentally.
Enough.
She plastered a bright smile
on her face. “He has no choice but to go along with my act anyway,
if he wants to find out what I’m up to. I only hope he’s so busy
trying to figure me out that he eases up on you. Otherwise you will
be far worse off than I. You don’t seem to be Major Radcliff’s
favorite Hathian.”

Jaca’s
smile looked forced. “It’s only for a few months, and I’m tougher
than I look.” Which was nothing less than the truth, thought
Marthe. “Don’t worry about me,” he continued. I’ll be such an
autocratic, overbearing, conceited and spoilt brat that they will
just beg me to escape.”

She
had to laugh then. She hugged him closely, trying to hold on to his
strength and familiarity till the last moment possible. She had an
idea she was going to need it.

“
You
say they are not extracting enough urgonium to meet Earth’s
domestic requirements?”

Marthe
passed a weary hand across aching eyes, before replying for what
must be the hundredth time. “That’s correct. They seem to know
little of more recent developments in energy generation that use
urgonium more efficiently or are based on other sources.

“
That’s impossible, child. The kind of alternatives you refer
to have been in common use throughout the Alliance for years, well
before the Terrans invaded. This Major Radcliff? Is he in a
position to fully know about Earth’s current situation?”

“
As
I have already stated, Councilor an Baktish, Major Radcliff is the
son of Representative Garth Radcliff of the Alliance Council and
Administrator Freya MacDiarmid. He was also part of Earth’s mission
to Hathe immediately prior to the invasion. He knew exactly how
badly the Terrans needed the urgonium then, and how much they still
do.”

“
Yes, yes, girl. You said that. But what else does he
know?”

“
I
was not able to ascertain the exact extent of his knowledge of
Earth’s affairs, Councilor,” she replied, politely resigned. “That
must wait until I return to Hathe’s surface proper.”

She’d
been giving similar answers for hours. The whole bunch of them now
ignored her, leaning over their notes and talking among themselves.
Marthe was set on a solitary chair facing what she could only think
of as her panel of inquisitors. Barely attending to their
discussions, she gazed speculatively at the lineup. Grey-haired and
tetchy Councilor an Baktish, the oldest member of Council—a fact
which afforded him a kind of precarious pride she had never been
able to understand. Beside him, the quietly distinguished and
completely unfathomable Councilor an Heurain. Though he spoke the
least, she had quickly become aware of how readily the other three
deferred to his judgment.

The
booming, staccato voice now addressing her belonged to Councilor an
Jordan. A large, hale man resembling a giant megalith in action,
she knew not to discount him for he was a man of subtle
deliberations. Then her own dear father, torn at present between
his duty to his people and to his family, a slight pucker wrinkling
his brow as he watched her closely. She could feel his concern,
caught the frown that warned her to attend, the frown that had
always accompanied worry for his children. Right now, she guessed
he would rather have been anywhere than in a senior Councilor’s
chair.

She
replied absentmindedly to Councilor an Jordan’s rather rambling
question, yet another that she had already answered over and over.
In the past two days, she would swear she could count on one hand
the minutes she had spent out of this room. Over in the far corner,
the same crack still reached cautiously up the otherwise flawless
wall, struggling to impose lunar forces on this antiseptic bastion
of the organic invaders. Even the potted shrubs in one corner were
a synthesized replica of the sprawling gardens of Hathe, the
atmosphere here too precious for other than necessary organic life.
Living plants were strictly confined to the hydroponic unit, as
part of the tightly controlled, environmental systems servicing the
colony on Mathe.

Thinking of this, she wondered cynically which were of the
least use: the ornamental shrubs or the even more ornamental
wielders of power sitting in front of her. But that, she supposed,
was unfair. Everyone had their own peculiar talents, as her father
was wont to say and, right now, she couldn’t really claim that her
talents had been of the slightest use to the cause. In all
probability, she may have actually hindered her people’s plans,
which was more than the garrulous an Baktish had ever managed. She
answered the next question. Would they never stop? She’d begun to
wish she’d never left Hathe.

At
last her relief force knocked on the door with a message that Agent
asn Castre was required Hatheside immediately if their cover was
not to be broken. Word had come that the Terran major was to be
released from sick bay, and he would be sure to ask about his
prisoners soon afterwards.

Thank
the stars, she breathed, hiding a grin of unholy joy. Her father
knew her too well and ticked her off soundly as they passed down
the corridor to the space bay shortly afterwards.

“
Marthe, Marthe, will I never instill in you a proper respect
for our leaders. We are in a very serious situation and here you
are, still treating a planetside mission as an exciting holiday
trip.”

“
It
is after that grilling, and well you know it, Father mine.” She
smiled, linking arms affectionately with her father and sister.
“You have no idea how lacking in imagination are our esteemed
leaders, Laren. I swear, if they asked a question once, they asked
it a dozen times. The scant information I had could have been
delivered in half an hour at most; but no, they had to pick over
every nuance, every slight change in tone.”

“
You
poor darling,” chuckled Laren. “Though Father is right. The
Councilors carry a heavy load of responsibility. Even if it is only
to provide our government with the essential essence of senility in
the case of your favorite, dear old an Baktish.”

“
Dear old an Baktish nothing. The man is a public menace. If
his family hadn’t bred so profusely, he would never be there. I
swear he must be related to half the planet.”

“
A
point you would do well to remember, if you do exaggerate
somewhat,” said her father. “Dotty old an Baktish he may be, but to
many of us he symbolizes the family ties on which our society is
built, and without which we would never have survived the invasion.
The planet couldn’t have been organized in that one, short month we
had before the Terrans arrived without a quick call to a second
cousin, a word from uncle to nephew, sisters having a chat, your
grandmother speaking to old an Baktish—her third cousin by
marriage, I might remind you. Formal deliberations at Council would
take an age if we had to find out the people’s opinion some other
way.”

“
Not
everyone has a relation on Council,” she pointed out.

“
No,
but enough do to get a cross-section of public opinion, and the
relationships are well enough known to be accessible.”

“
I
still think it’s a rather hit or miss form of
government.”

“
Maybe, little one, but it works. At least we make some
attempt to involve the populace in the decision-making process,
aside from the quadrennial vote. They don’t even bother with that
on your major’s precious Earth.” A grim frown marred his usually
gentle countenance. “Conquering us because they couldn’t be
bothered ruling their own planet properly! To such have fallen the
remnants of our ancestors.”

“
Now, Father,” soothed Laren, the eternal pacifier. “Our
ancestors left Earth, therefore these current Terrans cannot be
their descendants.”

“
A
technicality. We share a common, if distant, ancestry, and one
would expect a semblance of intelligence from the present
inhabitants of Earth. Their communication systems can only be
described as primitive, and these are the descendants of the first
Terran species to acquire the gift of language. It’s criminal! Do
you not agree, des Trurain”

Jaca
had chosen that unfortunate moment to emerge from an adjacent
corridor. “Certainly sir, most definitely,” he replied, shooting an
enquiring glance at Laren.

“
Father is upset that Marthe must return and is relieving
himself by denouncing our distant cousins of Earth. Just keep
agreeing in that beautiful manner of yours. The most polished in
all Hathe, as my third cousin Juanine once said.”